She continued to write and lecture, and to instill at Columbia University and at Fordham, until her death from pancreatic pubic louse in 1978. Her status seemed secure, and her hold backs were continually in print and employ in anthropology courses as outstanding contribution to the understanding of bad-mannered societies, and how they both were similar to, and collided with, Western civilization.
It was not until five days after her death, in 1983, that controversy began to swirl around Mead's writing, oddly her research in Coming of Age in Samoa. Australian anthropologist, Derek freeman launched a rather vicious and even individual(prenominal) attack on Mead. This attack "inspired a grade of worldwide forums and discussions, and aroused spirited defense of her career. Her archaeozoic eye socket break down may have been hurried and imperfect, but her openhanded view of human nature enduresa" (Howard 1984 118) What was Freeman's book and his argument, calling Mead's work "a myth" all about? Freeman claims that "Margaret Mead was an assert cultural determinist, under the heavy influence of people such as Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict, two of the most important early figures in American cultural anthropology." (Turnbull 1983 32) According to Freeman, Mead "dismissed biology, or nature, as being of no s
Shankman, P. "Requiem for a Controversy" Altadena CA: Skeptic outset 2001 v9 i1 p. 48
"It appeared that the controversy would die out in academia until Freeman announced in the late 1980sa that he had 'crucially important refreshful evidence' that resolved the controversy." (Cote 31) What Freeman referred to, according to Cote, were statements made by Fa'apua'a Fa'amu, an gray woman who had been one of Mead's age-mate Samoan friends during her 1925-26 memorise. According to this now aged(a) woman, she and a friend perpetrated a hoax on Mead when they were on an outing together.
According to this woman, Mead had believed, as a result of the conversations the iii had on that day, that she had discovered a free love ship's company where the community did not attempt to curb the sexual use of adolescents. Freeman then summed it all up by expression that this hoax was translated by Mead into a society-wide practice.
It is interesting to note that more or less of the contemporary anthropologist Freeman cites as helping him prove that oftentimes of Mead's work was flawed by producing works that were contrary to Mead's findings genuinely praised her work. "Lowell D. Holmes, for example, said he thought Mead's account 'remarkably reliable, and both he and Eleanor Gerber readily saw, in the simple passage of time, explanation sufficient for any discrepancies." (Turnbull 33)
Freeman's critics, and supporters of Mead, point out that Mead was not totally unrehearsed for the society she was going to study, and that reports about sexual activity had been draw and annotated since the islands were discovered by Captain Cook. As Cote (1998) points out that Mead's book was not a handbook on free love, "although Mead did win misleading embellishments when it came to writing the book for the general public." (p. 31) So, it would be plumb to ask whether an anthropologist has the right to "embellish", or whether it needs to be established that a book is written for anthropological study
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